Environmental groups yesterday held a protest in front of the Executive Yuan in Taipei, urging the Cabinet to pass a draft bill on ocean conservation by the end of this legislative term.
“Taiwan is surrounded by the sea and the Pacific Ocean, and it is urgent to pass key bills to protect marine resources and ensure sustainable development,” said Kuo Chia-wen (郭佳雯), board member of the Matsu Fish Conservation Union, Taiwan.
“Key regulations covering the ocean and its resources are laid out in several draft bills, offering different levels of protection and varying control standards, but they still cannot ensure full conservation and protection of marine ecosystems,” she said.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
Only the draft Marine Industry Development bill (海洋產業發展條例) has passed a third reading in the legislature, while the most important one — a bill on ocean conservation — is still awaiting a proposal from the Executive Yuan, she added.
“Taiwan’s coral reefs in coastal areas are under severe threat due to seawater warming. With the world’s major oceans in July setting record-high temperatures, many marine species are facing the danger of extinction,” New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said at the protest.
“The waters surrounding Taiwan and our coasts are under unremitting assault due to worsening pollution, degradation due to the construction of offshore wind turbines, overfishing leading to depletion of fish stocks and Chinese vessels engaged in illegal sand dredging,” he said.
“We lack funding and personnel to take up marine conservation work, which is not covered by legal measures that can mete out punishments or have a deterrent effect,” he said, adding that his party is ready with its version of a draft bill.
“We are now into the final few months of this legislative term, but the Executive Yuan has yet to finalize its draft bill. In failing to do so, lawmakers cannot put its deliberation on the agenda,” he said.
Taiwan Environmental Information Association’s project manager Kuan Chun-an (官淳安) said that an ocean conservation bill could help replenish fish and marine resources, so that the fishing industry would not have to contend with dwindling catch or catching smaller fish.
Hopefully, such legislation can fully protect all marine ecosystems, he said.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS